A popular vote for president? These NBC guys should know better

Under the current system, both these guys ignored 40 states. A change from winner-take-all to the Maine-Nebraska system for awarding electors would cure that problem.Star-Ledger file photos

Over at the NBC First Read site, we see an article that shows a surprising degree of naivete for professional political reporters.

The article is about a move by Republicans to extend the so-called Maine-Nebraska system for choosing presidential electors to several other states.

In those two states electors are awarded by congressional district rather than by the winner-take-all system popular in other states.

As I noted here, there's nothing particularly natural or preferable about the winner-take-all system system for awarding electors. When the nation began, it was not in place in most states. And it has worked out dreadfully. We saw that in the last election, where both candidates ignored the voters in states like New Jersey and California to concentrate on 10 swing states.

"I get tired of hearing from well-meaning readers who want to go to a national popular vote. This can't happen, of course, because the small states would be idiotic to go along with such an amendment. However, a district-by-district system would accomplish much the same thing, so I wonder why more of these characters aren't pushing it. Also it might have the effect of encouraging state pols to draw more competitive districts in the hopes of picking up an electoral vote or two. (And, of course, as a journalist here in solidly blue Jersey, I sure wish the candidates would show up every

And as I have also noted, the Maine-Nebraska system is already in place in seven other states as well. In every state that has just one congressman, there is no difference between winner-take-all and the district system. In a small state like Wyoming, for example, winner-take-all and winner-by-district have the same effect: All three votes go to the statewide winner.

There are 14 states with five electoral voters or less. All would be committing political suicide to endorse a system that takes the power from them and gives it to giant states like California, Texas and New York. All 14 have an interest in opposing any constitutional amendment creating a national popular vote.

But it takes the consent of three-fourths of the states to amend the constitution. That's 38 states. And that means any amendment to creats a national popular vote would come up at least two votes short, probably more when voters in the rest of the smaller states realized they would be handing the franchise to the big states.

Now read what the NBC guys have to say:

Some Republicans are looking to change the Electoral College system in battleground states that Democrats have won in the last two cycles. As the Washington Post reports, Republicans in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia -- all controlled at the state level (in some form or fashion) by the GOP -- have proposed awarding their Electoral College votes by congressional district instead of the winner-take-all approach used by every state except for two (Maine and Nebraska). “No state is moving quicker than Virginia, where state senators are likely to vote on the plan as soon as next week,” the Post says.

So far, so good.

But these professionals then drift off into ravings common to political amateurs:

One, the Republicans pushing them are all but acknowledging that their party problems heading into 2016 are so significant that they have to change the rules in order to win. In other words, they are throwing in the towel and trying to rig the system. Two, the proposed changes would only speed up efforts to have the popular vote -- and not the Electoral College -- decide presidential contests, because many would see that as a fairer system. So Republicans need to ask themselves this question: Do they want the current Electoral College system, or do they want the popular vote?

One: Changing the way electoral votes are awarded is not "rigging the system." It is the system - as long as it's done legally.

Again, there is nothing natural or even preferable about winner-take-all. That system led us to the current dilemma in which the voters in 40 states are ignored by both parties for the entire campaign.

Two: Nonsense. You can't "speed up efforts" to make something happen that is politically impossible. And an amendment creating a national popular vote is politically impossible.

Meanwhile efforts to install the Maine-Nebraska are not just politically possible. They're politically inevitable - once Republicans finally figure out the advantage for them

These liberals at NBC may not like that. But that's the reality - at least to those of us who understand politics.

ADD: After thinking about this for a bit, I realized prospects for passage of a popular-vote amendment are even more unlikely than they seem at first. Divide the number of electors by the number of states and you'll see that the average number of electors per state is about 11. Then check a map like this one. Any state that has fewer electors than that has a disproportionately large amount of power under the current system and therefore has a motive to keep it.
Conversely any state with more electors than that has less power under the current system and therefore has a motive to change it

Now count the states and see where they stand on that scale.

My count shows there are just 14 states that would benefit from the change. They are predominantly coastal states that are not all that popular with the inhabitants of the smaller states inland. The assumption of the popular-vote crowd, almost all of whom come from big states, is that all of these small-state voters would go against their own interests - simply because a lot of TV talking heads from the big states told them to.

That is not a smart assumption. And neither is the assumption that they will give up their plans to go to the Maine-Nebraska system just because NBC told them to.